A Special Forces unit using bulldozers
broke through the walls of Kian Tyre (formerly Alborz Lastic) and abducted 1000
workers, who had been protesting about unpaid wages. No one has any knowledge
of their whereabouts.

A Special Forces unit using bulldozers
broke through the walls of Kian Tyre (formerly Alborz Lastic) and abducted 1000
workers. The workers were bundled onto awaiting coaches and taken away. This
Special Forces unit took just 10 minutes to beat up a large number of workers
and effectively to kidnap all the workers at this tyre plant. No one, even
their families, have any knowledge of their whereabouts.

Just five or six workers escaped, using the
sewers to make their getaway, and were able to telephone a report to a radio
station. They think that the coaches took the workers to somewhere in Karaj, 20 km west of Tehran.

The workers of Kian Tyre in Chahardangeh,
near Tehran,
have not been paid for five months and began the protest for payment of their
unpaid wages inside the factory on Wednesday 9 April. The Special Forces raid
and abductions took place on the evening of Saturday 12 April.

We urge all trade unionists, labour and human
rights activists to help us publicise this heinous act of the Iranian regime
and to put pressure on it to release the abducted workers immediacy and
unconditionally. Please begin your support by sending a protest letter (model
letter, http://www.iwsn.org/campaigns/kian-tyre-model-letter.htm).